Here's an 1880 pamphlet from Harroun & Bierstadt advertising the Artotype process:

"Artotypes are photographs in printing-ink"

https://digital.clarkart.edu/digital/collection/p1325coll1/id/2102

Artotype appears to have been similar to the 1855 collotype printing process:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collotype

I have not yet found an 1876 patent for Bierstadt.

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Bill

On 18-Sep-20 4:53 PM, robert mcafee via groups.io wrote:

David,
Unfortunately the auction house shows only the exterior binding.  In the paperback reprint of this book, edited by Robert Joki, there are a couple pictures of the inside cover with integral viewer (poor copy attached).  That inner cover is stamped (in gold I presume) "Patented March 21st 1876 Manufactured by Harround & Bierstadt Proprietors N.Y."
As for number of copies, the Onondaga Historical Society has a copy, Syracuse University has a copy, the editor Robert Joki has a copy and the auction house has a copy - so at least 4 survive (assume none of this were Mr. Joki's copy).  Mr. Joki estimated the selling cost at that time as likely around $100 (quite a sum for 1878).  He suggests it was probably sold by subscription and it was common to charge a wealthy family or business to feature an image of their home/business and to sell them a copy of the book.
H. Perry Smith produced the text.  Photographers were Myron Judd and William McLeish.  Printing and binding was done by Syracuse printer Truair, Smith, & Bruce.
Joki notes in 1878 no photo-mechanical half-tone process had been invented yet that could transfer original photos to plates for printing.  Therefore the reason to used tipped in photos.
The auctioneer's site has a couple scans of stereo pairs from the book. Joki un-bound his own copy to scan the images (as some pages had separated due to the tight binding).  One reason I would like to locate Mr. Joki is to find out if he has scans of the stereo pairs he might share or sell.
So ... This is definitely the Bierstadt Patent design.
Bob McAfee
Syracuse, N
Inline imageInline image

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Bill